The drug war is, inter alia, about “what we tell kids about life.” The drug prohibitionists tell them one set of lies, for example, that marijuana is dangerous, but Ritalin is not. The drug medicalizers tell them another set of lies, for example, that using an illegal drug is a disease like diabetes and that being imprisoned by psychiatrists is “treatment” like injecting oneself with insulin.

If libertarians believe in bodily self-ownership, then the problems that the “harm reducers” propose to remedy could not even arise.

Published in The Freeman. part 1, Jan, 2003; part 2 Oct. 2003. fee.org